In-game UI Design

[Cheeseness]

We'll want to develop layout and widget design for the following in-game elements:

• Mini map
• Golf simulation swing/power/aim indicators
• Current score indicator
• Ball location indicator (to make balls easier to find and drive to/over)
• Ball offscreen indicator
• Current leaderboard (everybody's score) overlay?
• Text chat widget (Text Chat functionality #19)

[keozeo]

[MindofKlink]

That's a great start, @keozeo! I was also thinking of having a 'clean' interface ala Brütal Legend or even something like Split/Second (reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8gdUldwD0I) Notice how the speed/power/position appears behind the car?

The only problem with that idea is that the player loses a bit of information when it comes to the golfing side of things. Do we need a mini-map or do we have indicators within the game showing the location of the hole/balls? It's something to think about and more importantly test to feel what's right.

[ghost]

Quick mock, I'll try my hand at a more "in-world" style hud next.

[keozeo]

I like it.

[Cheeseness]

Ha, I love this.

[ChrAfonso]

This looks great! I'm in the "make the HUD as minimal as possible" camp ;) I'm a bit torn on the minimap, on the one hand I like the look of it, on the other hand, if the action is as frantic as I anticipate it to be, it could be distracting to always look up there and try to figure out where everyone is - could make it too strategic? Just an indicator arrow towards your ball seems fine to me.

[Cheeseness]

I think indicators pointing to everybody's balls would really help the game flow - since your primary goal is to reach the hole first, and your secondary goal is preventing other players from beating you, knowing where nearby balls that you can run over and stuff is going to be handy.

The minimap will be handy for planning our your shot as you approach your own ball. I think we should implement it, and then assess whether we should keep it or refactor it into a toggleable overlay based on what feels right from play testing.

[The-Mad-Pirate]

Love it too !

[ghost]

Ok, here's a different one

This has, in style of Split/Second, player indicators next to the cart, I figured the arrows could get more opaque the closer a player in that direction is, it also has ball indicators, dark-blue/bigger one being your ball, the smaller ones other player balls. I also removed the minimap.

Putting/shooting, same concept, except the half-circle now is the strength/accuracy meter. Do we want to show wind, selected club..? Might be beyond what we're going for right now.

[ghost]

Just to clarify a couple of things...

[ghost]

I love the way it looks! Simple and reads clearly.

One thought: Avoid using green text in the chat window and stroke (top right hand corner). There's going to be a lot of green in the level to compete with.

[MindofKlink]

Holy crap @lightsoda! That's amazing. I definitely like the idea of the indicators fading from transparency the closer you get to them (or the closer other players get to you).

Perhaps different colours for each player? Although the issue would be trying to find colours that can pop out from the enormous amounts of green. Red is normally greens' complimentary colour so I guess you could try using more warmer colours for the indicators.

[ghost]

Yeah, @MindofKlink, as you might've noticed in my earlier mock, I had different colors for the players in the minimap. I was thinking of doing the same on the arrows, not sure why I didn't. There's been quite some talk about appropriate coloring, and frankly, I think we might just as well wait until we get it in-game to figure out what works and what doesn't, and if we should consider colorblindness.

@fatmandu I made the player names that color because I didn't want it to stand out, as I didn't consider it important information, though it could pop a little more.

[Cheeseness]

@lightsoda Looking awesome as always.

I'm not 100% certain how good an idea it is for a health indicator to change behaviour like that (it should probably undergo some kind of silhouette change to help make it readable that it's different - getting thicker maybe?)